IceCaps have developed into an organizational success story for Jets

Go with the floe

WHY are the St. John’s Ice Caps in the Calder Cup final starting Sunday? There are many reasons, two of which are the Winnipeg Jets’ top affiliate is neither micro-managed nor micro-focused on winning.

For a long time as the Manitoba Moose, True North, now the owners of the Jets, had winning as just about its only goal in the AHL. It was in an affiliation with the Vancouver Canucks but it was through an era that by and large there wasn’t an abundance of help from Vancouver.

MARK MORAN / THE CITIZENS VOICE

Veteran players such as Andrew Gordon and captain Jason Jaffray have provided crucial leadership on a team with a number of younger prospects.

The GM of the Moose and in that continuing role with the IceCaps is Craig Heisinger. As the Jets assistant GM, he now sits on the other side of the table, his priority what is good for the NHL team. But Heisinger also knows the what the relationship looks like from his former chair and so development has in no way overrun winning in this constant tug-of-war.

Heisinger and Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, whose background includes a successful managing stint with both the IHL and AHL Chicago Wolves, would seem to be uniquely qualified to maximize and grow their assets from the AHL level.

They call it building an NHL organization, changing its culture.

That the IceCaps have been victorious through three rounds of the AHL playoffs, and will meet the Texas Stars for the league championship, is an element of that desired culture progress.

"You’re trying to develop," Heisinger said Thursday. "We believe winning’s part of development. It doesn’t help if it’s a 100 per cent veteran core group but that’s clearly not the case here anymore. As always, the experience you gain playing in the playoffs is significant. There’s no doubt about that.

"Those games you get, whether it’s five, 15, 21, whatever the number, are every bit as valuable as the 76 in the regular season. And as your team gets younger in the American Hockey League, they start to come up to the NHL more as a group. And that’s important, too, to learn to win at one level and learn to be professionals at one level then come up and do that at the next level.

"I think you see that in other situations, like Norfolk-Tampa, Binghamton-Ottawa, teams that have won. Guys have come up and been successful at the next level. But at the end of the day, the experience you get in the development curve at this time is hard to pay for."

Heisinger, with three drafts as an NHL executive under his ever-shrinking belt, said the annual amateur selection process is an integral part of how management is trying to affect the culture change.

"I think it starts on the outside, that you’re drafting good people and putting good people in a good environment to try to have success," he said. "I think it starts in the drafting period."

Of course, it wasn’t just a draft that helped him change the IceCaps back into winners this season. In 2012-13, the AHL team was 14th in the 15-team Eastern Conference, out of the playoffs for only the second time in True North’s AHL existence since 2001.

"It depends on how you measure success," Heisinger said. "Was (last season) successful based on making the playoffs? No. Was it an anomaly? I think so, based on history on how we’ve tried to do things.

"From a standpoint of winning and losing, it was not successful but from a development standpoint I think it was successful because guys played and people got better and you find out about people in situations that aren’t quite as successful. It’s easy to play in an environment that wins all the time. You find out about people when things don’t go quite as well."

Despite the poor finish, Heisinger said last season was "useful" to himself and the Jets as it concerned the AHL team.

"That’s a good word," he said. "You don’t like what happened last year but when it does happen, and it doesn’t happen frequently, you learn from that and I know I learned a tremendous amount from that. I think we all did."

The best-of-seven series starts Sunday in Cedar Park, Texas, a suburb of Austin, but that’s not all the IceCaps’ GM is pondering.

He’s also mindful of next season and beyond with the youngsters that are playing and still to be drafted.

"The young players continue to get better and those guys turn into core guys that help the younger players," he said. "We’ll have some younger guys coming in again next year. It won’t be just learning from the veteran players like Andrew Gordon and Jason Jaffray and Blair Riley. It’ll be introducing leadership at the pro level to guys like Adam Lowry and J.C. Lipon and Brenden Kichton now that they’ve experienced this.

"It’ll help Josh Morrissey be a better captain if he has to go back to junior, if he doesn’t make the Winnipeg Jets in the fall."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

IceCaps the Jets are keeping a keen eye on:

D JOSH MORRISSEY Drafted: first round (13th overall) 2013 Age: 19 After being a finalist for WHL defenceman of the year, Morrissey has had an impact on the AHL playoffs with two goals and eight points.C ADAM LOWRY Drafted: third round (67th overall) 2011 Age: 21 injured to start the playoffs, Lowry has returned to be effective after blossoming in the season’s second half.G MICHAEL HUTCHINSON Acquired: Free agent in summer 2013 Age: 24 Excellent second half for the IceCaps, showed the Jets his stuff in three games and now has been a backbone in the playoffs.D ZACH REDMOND Drafted: seventh round (184th overall) 2008 Age: 25 Has overcome his horrific leg injury to be a mainstay on this year’s winning squad; played 10 games with the Jets.D BEN CHIAROT Drafted: fourth round (120th overall) 2009 Age: 23 His increasing impact and minutes for the Ice-Caps have some talking about him as next fall’s late-blooming sleeper at Jets’ camp.C ERIC O’DELL Acquired: Free agent in 2011 Age: 23 Made a strong case for himself in 30 games with this year’s Jets; has nine goals in the AHL playoffs and has been one of the team’s engines all season.C PATRICE CORMIER Acquired: Trade in 2009 Age: 23 May personify the IceCaps modus operandi — hard to play against.RW J.C. LIPON Drafted: third round (91st overall) 2013 Age: 20 Rookie has pleased the brass most of the year, continues to play with sandpaper as he adapts to the pro game.D BRENDEN KICHTON Drafted: seventh round (190th overall) 2013 Age: 21 Rookie pro, the former WHL defenceman of the year, will get very good marks for his first year; has shown his game does translate to the next level.C JOHN ALBERT Acquired: free agent in 2011 Age: 25 Originally an Atlanta pick, Albert is one of the IceCaps’ true energizer bunnies; had nine games with the Jets this season and kept up easily.LW CARL KLINGBERG Drafted: second round (34th overall) 2009 Age: 23 Had a personal-best 22 goals for the Ice-Caps this season; was a growing factor for the team in the second half when he was recalled and scored his first NHL goal.

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